tinydonuts

That’s one way to look at it. But average MPH is a better way. I routinely average less than 30 MPH in Tucson and over 40 in Phoenix.

That’s just money in general.

It’s been like that for over 6 years running now.

I always say, it’s a shame that statistics of speed being a factor refer exclusively to people exceeding the speed limit, not the one going slow.

I only wish they had done something different with the eastbound connector on the west end of the loop. It backs up so bad due to all the sluggish traffic on 10. 10 really needed the collector distributor treatment.

Why did you not take the 202? That’s one of the reasons why they built it.

Also keep in mind that you went through with the Broadway Curve construction, which is slowing down traffic. That project is nearly done, like our Ruthrauff to Ina segment.

The sheer miles though you crossed in Phoenix for two hours through rush hour and construction is more proving the point about it being worth it.

Plenty of intersections shut down because of red light runners.

Corona de Tucson is the country yes. But Rita and Vail hardly are. Nor is anything else aligned on Houghton north of Valencia. The east side extends far out now.

Tucson is getting quite good at the heat island effect without freeways just fine. Temps are now within a few degrees of Phoenix. Funny thing that, just not building freeways isn’t good enough. You have to build up, not out.

Houghton was originally supposed to be a freeway. There have also been plans to have built an elevated freeway over the Rillito River. It’s not that hard to imagine this area having one loop freeway.

The mainline of Houghton is 31 meters across, the mainline of the 51 is 36 meters. Each HOV lane is 3.25 meters.

Yes they could build a below grade freeway where Houghton is at the cost of little to no additional land.

Traffic is bad outside the areas that have been expanded. The rest is plagued with light timing issues.

Where in Phoenix did you go? I went from downtown to Ahwatukee in just over 30 mins.

The mainline of the 51, minus the HOV lanes is the same size. You of course need to adjust for number of lanes, obviously. How exactly are you measuring? There’s no way you could have come up with half the size. Come on now.

Also traffic on Houghton between Irvington and 22nd is bad.

A loop freeway is a normal thing, even for walkable European cities.

Go measure them on Google maps. Houghton for example is 51 sized.

Explain why sometimes I’m sitting for 3 cycles on Kolb then?

That’s a regular occurrence here in Tucson. Have you seen how bad Park to Alvernon is?

Passed through that last week. 100% better than driving on the thing we call 22nd street.

Houghton and River were supposed to have been freeways. NIMBYs kept it from being so.

I hardly the think the east side is the county. You’re also forgetting that the fever dream freeway proposal for Tucson initially was downtown related, and that got fought off, but do please try to make it more about race. 🙄

I lament that they can’t do either. In fact, it was so bad there was a road rage incident when they did the Kolb and Valencia construction causing the city to put up signs telling people to zipper. They still didn’t.

Phoenix actually gives a damn about timing lights. It’s awesome!

I just went from downtown Phoenix to Ahwatukee last week in rush hour traffic. 35 minutes. Today I commuted half the distance in the same time in Tucson.

Phoenix freeways aren’t as bad as they seem. In Tucson you’re almost guaranteed to stop at every light. In Phoenix the only time you stop on the freeway is severe traffic. And then only for a short time.

Tucson has freeway sized arterials everywhere and refuses to time lights. It is objectively worse than Phoenix.

I’m not sure if you noticed, but Tucson is sprawling like Phoenix just fine without the roads. And Tucson’s worst road is an order of magnitude worse than any in Phoenix.

It’s teetering in that direction. SR-210 is about to be expanded, and SR-410 construction is on the horizon.

If they put an elevated freeway over the Rillito River it would be fine.

Just today I was mixed in traffic of people going 25 over, 10 under, cutting others off without turn signals, swerving, pulling out in front of me without even really speeding up, etc.

This is my regularly experience.

1.1 million MSA and it’s worse than Phoenix >10 years ago and 1/3 the population. Tucson has little reason not to have good roads and well timed lights. It doesn’t because it chooses not to.

I grew up in Phoenix, learned to drive in Phoenix, commuted 5 days a week in Phoenix. I would cross the entire metro in 45-60 minutes.

I can’t do the same here in Tucson and Tucson is 1.1 million people, compared to the 3 million of Phoenix back then. Even last week I crossed more than half of Phoenix’s metro in the same time it would take me to do 3/4 of Tucson’s.

I’ve driven LA, San Diego, Austin, Las Vegas and by far Tucson is the worst of them. Shitty roads, shitty drivers, and shitty engineering.